WAYNE, NJ (September
26, 2013)
– JVC Professional Products
Company, a division of JVC Americas Corp., today announced that
KOAA, the NBC affiliate for Colorado Springs-Pueblo, Colo. (DMA
#89), used the built-in live HD transmission functionality of its
new GY-HM650 ProHD handheld mobile news
camera to provide live
coverage of the deadly Colorado floods earlier this month.
Wirelessly paired with a Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot, the
HD
camcorder was able to
transmit live footage during the event from locations that were
inaccessible by traditional live trucks.

For most live shots, KOAA relies on one of
its three JVC GY-HM790 cameras, equipped with a KA-AS790G ASI module
that is connected directly to the microwave truck via BNC. However,
many of the areas affected by the floods did not provide
line-of-sight to the station’s tower, which meant microwave trucks
could not be used. Satellite trucks could work, but rising flood
waters and muddy roadways made for treacherous driving conditions.

According to Quentin Henry, KOAA chief
engineer, the GY-HM650’s live streaming functionality was pressed
into service “so we could cover these flood areas that could not
be accessed by the live trucks.” The station had just completed
two days of streaming tests with a Teradek decoder, which had been
recently installed.

News teams took the GY-HM650 into canyons and
other troubled areas to document how quickly the water rose. Henry
said the 720p footage from the GY-HM650 was “one of the higher
quality pictures we had on the air” during the Colorado floods;
the station’s Ku band satellite truck had some breakup issues
because its uplink path to the satellite was obstructed by heavy
cloud cover.

The camera’s dual codec design allowed KOAA
to record its live standups and other footage on an SDHC media cards
on site in higher 1080p resolution during its live shots. The news
team was then able to edit that footage into packages back at the
station, without searching for a copy of the broadcast. KOAA uses
Harris Velocity NLE systems, and the GY-HM650 records native .MP4
files that can be dropped directly into the editing timeline without
transcoding.

While KOAA has been broadcasting in HD since
2010 and has had a tapeless workflow with Panasonic P2 camcorders
for more than five years, the station recently began the addition of
JVC ProHD cameras. “JVC popped up as a very solid, high quality
player, with service equal to if not above others,” Henry
explained. Not only was JVC’s support of live HD transmission a
major selling point, but the company’s use of inexpensive,
non-proprietary SDHC media cards was “a huge issue when it came to
budgeting.”

KOAA is one of 10 television stations that
are owned by Cordillera Communications, Inc., and produce local
news. Henry said the station was used as a testbed for the GY-HM650
– and following its successful use during the Colorado floods,
another GY-HM650 was recently deployed at KATC, the ABC affiliate
serving Lafayette, La. (DMA #124). KOAA photographers, who have been
using the GY-HM650 since June, have praised the camera’s light
frame, sturdy build, and built-in 23x zoom lens.

Since the floods, KOAA used the GY-HM650 for
live coverage of controversial city council meetings in Denver.
Henry said shooters from a major Denver-based network station began
taking pictures of KOAA’s “magic cam” because they were amazed
that it could produce a live transmission without a wired connection
to a truck or a backpack video transmission system.

Cordillera had previously researched the
various backpack systems on the market, but decided against
investing in technology that required multiple air cards for
operation. “The JVC GY-HM650 and the Verizon Jetpack have given us
what we need,” Henry said. “We can do this with only one Verizon
data account instead of six to nine. That brings down the cost
considerably.”

ABOUT JVC PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTS COMPANY

Headquartered in Wayne, New Jersey, with West
Coast operations in Long Beach, California, JVC Professional
Products Company is a division of JVC Americas Corp., a wholly-owned
subsidiary of JVC Kenwood Corporation. JVC
is a leading manufacturer and distributor of broadcast and
professional video and audio equipment, D-ILA front projection
systems, and Super LoLux HD video security products. For further
product information, visit JVC’s Web
site at http://pro.jvc.com
or call (800) 582-5825.

# # #

Caption: KOAA multimedia journalist Joanna Wise
shows off the station’s new JVC GY-HM650 ProHD mobile news camera,
which was used to provide live coverage of
the deadly Colorado floods earlier this month.